An Inner Flu
by Xovinx
Summary: "What was that? I finally get to see your Hollowfied Bankai Getsugatensho… and it's that?" Ichigo stuttered for a minute, uncertain how to reply, before finally managing a weak, "My Hollow has the flu."


The city gradually darkened as grey clouds began to drift across the sun, at first just a few, then more and more. A single drop of rain fell from the sky and splashed against a window, fracturing against the glass.

The elderly man kneeling near said window looked up with a frown. "Not now…" he sighed, looking at the sniffling young man next to him. Another rainstorm was the _last_ thing they needed right now. Well, second to last. A storm and a _fight_ would be worse.

The pale young man sneezed violently, head bobbing almost comically. His bloodshot eyes rose to glare at the sky. "If you rain on me, I'm gonna…" he threatened in a hoarse yell, but another sneeze interrupted him. He shivered, abandoning his attempt to threaten the coming storm into submission as he realized he was in no position to threaten anything.

"Don't yell, it'll make your sour throat worse," cautioned his elderly caretaker, draping a dark red blanket around the young man. "Hopefully it's just a passing little drizzle."

"I hate being sick," the other grumbled. "Hate it, hate it, hate it."

"Nobody likes being sick," agreed his friend. "But it could be worse. Hopefully we'll have a nice break from fighting for a while so you can get better. You need rest."

"'Hopefully it's just a drizzle'. 'Hopefully we'll have a break from fighting'. You're pretty optimistic for a grumpy old man, Zangetsu."

"Just because the kid needs a harsh teacher when he's depressed doesn't mean I have to act like it all the time. Besides, you're gloomy enough for both of us."

The pale, spiky-haired young man sneezed again, tried to growl in displeasure and got himself into a fit of coughing. The clouds above them rumbled ominously, now covering the entire sky with grey and black.

Zangetsu looked up at the clouds again, concerned. _Stay positive, stay positive._ He wasn't sure if he was telling himself that, or Ichigo. All he knew was that a storm right now would only serve to make Shiro sicker, and the Hollow was already depressed enough with the flu he had now.

"King's getting into another fight, isn't he?" asked Shiro, his reverberating voice sounding very strange while he was suffering a stuffy nose. "Just my luck…"

"I'm sure it'll be fine," insisted Zangetsu soothingly. "Ichigo gets depressed all the time without necessarily getting into fights. Who knows, he might be sick himself and just getting upset because he's stuck in bed."

That made Shiro laugh, though halfway through it turned back into coughing. Zangetsu winced as his pale companion doubled over, panting and wheezing as he tried to regain his breath.

"Sorry, I shouldn't make you laugh…"

"No, no, that was good. It hurt, but it was good."

The clouds rumbled again, and a strong, chilly wind blew through the sideways city. Shiro shivered and hugged Zangetsu's blanket closer around him, turning his face away from the wind.

And that's when he said what Zangetsu had been trying not to think.

"This is gonna be too big a storm to be made from King being sick in bed."

...

"Getsuga… TENSHO!"

The energy attack slammed into Ichigo's opponent, flinging him back through the air. Ichigo scowled at his Zanpakuto, not at all satisfied with the level of destruction his Getsugatensho had unleashed.

"What's up, Zangetsu Osan?" he muttered to himself as he pounced after his enemy, raising his giant cleaver of a sword high over his head.

...

Zangetsu sighed, taking off his glasses for a moment to rub his nose. "Hang on, Shiro, Ichigo's calling me again. Just stay here and rest, okay? I'll come back as soon as I can."

The sickly Hollow scowled, grabbing a tissue and viciously blew his nose. "You get that arrogant Shinigami wannabe to back down, hear me? This is no time for a fight with an overpowered bad guy!" He glowered at the tissue and threw it down an open window they had designated the garbage chute.

"I'll do my best," promised Zangetsu, and disappeared. The sideways city was quiet for a moment, then Shiro sneezed again.

...

"Osan, what's the big deal?! Getsugatensho is acting odd today!" Ichigo exclaimed when the spirit of his Zanpakuto stepped through the air next to him. Time seemed to freeze, his opponent in the middle of releasing his Zanpakuto, as Ichigo and Zangetsu conversed.

"Your inner Hollow is sick," Zangetsu explained shortly. "All your depressing attitudes lately have been raining almost non-stop on us, and he came down with the flu. I was trying to nurse him back to health when you decided to get into a fight…"

Ichigo stared at him incredulously. "My Hollow… has the flu?" he asked, amazed. "I didn't even know that was _possible_."

"With you in your recent state of gloominess, it is," retorted Zangetsu, and Ichigo humphed.

"Seireitei is on the brink of servitude to an evil dictator, Rukia and Orihime are _both_ missing who-knows-where and everyone I know thinks I'm an insane murderer. How can I _not_ be gloomy?"

"And that attitude is why your Hollow is sick," said Zangetsu. "You need to back down, this once, and let him recover, preferably finding your determination again in the process."

"I _am_ determined," insisted Ichigo, gesturing to his opponent. "I'm fighting him, aren't I?"

"And yet it still pours rain on us," Zangetsu said dryly. He turned and began to walk away. "Do not call on your Hollow for this battle, and find somewhere where we can all recover from this."

"Matte, Zangetsu Osan!"

But Zangetsu didn't stop, and a moment later he had disappeared back into the inner world.

...

Shi huddled miserably under the blanket, the blacks of his eyes shot through with dark red.

"Stinkin' King and his stinkin' attitude," he grumbled through his sour throat. "Stinkin' rain. Stinkin' storm. Stinkin' cold."

Zangetsu appeared again, shaking his head at something. Shiro looked up, a question on his lips, when a familiar word rang through the city.

"_Ban-KAI!"_

"Stinkin' Bankai!"

Zangetsu froze, sneezed once and disappeared in a poof of reiatsu, kicking up dust from the wall beneath him. When the dust cleared, Tensa Zangetsu was standing there, rearranging his cloak while attempting to find the hood.

Shiro hunkered down further into his blanket. He grumbled a few indecipherable words and began coughing again.

"Oh, it's you," Tensa Zangetsu said in his rather disinterested voice. "You look rather pitiful, Hollow."

"I hate you," Shiro retorted.

"You're the reason it rains so much," Tensa retorted in turn. "You're sick and it's your own fault!"

Shiro was about to say something back, probably something rather mean, but instead sneezed. In fact, he got into a fit of sneezing, eyes tightly closed, fumbling around while trying to locate his tissues.

Tensa watched him as he finally found the box, blew his nose several times, and then hunched over panting for breath.

"You really are in a pretty sorry condition right now, aren't you," stated Tensa, his tone only slightly softer then his usual scathing tone.

"Shut up," replied Shiro miserably, turning his head to look towards the distant sky. "I wonder if Zangetsu knows he was such a brat when he was younger…"

...

Ichigo, had he been that kind of boy, might have considered this a grossly unfair fight. As it was, every time his opponent smashed him into a building, he simply went up another notch on the _I will defeat you because I must_ scale. His Bankai hung in tatters around him, a cut in his cheek kept tickling him with blood and his arms were trembling as he tried to keep his Zanpakuto held steady.

_I really hate people like this guy_, he thought to himself, seeing his opponent's rather bored, blank expression as he waited for Ichigo to get up again. _I really hate them…_

He growled, then raised one hand to his face. If that overconfident, smug-faced intruder thought he was going to have an easy time of this with his absurdly overpowered Bankai of his, he was dead wrong.

...

Tensa frowned as he took the thermometer from Shiro's mouth, shaking his head. "This is more serious than I thought…" he said, then glanced at the Hollow. "Has your tongue always been blue?'

Shiro glared at him. "Yes, it has."

Shiro's plight had finely softened Tensa's arrogant heart, but unfortunately for them both he had nowhere near the grandfatherly nature of his older, Shikai self. Tensa wasn't really sure how to help Shiro, and Shiro found half of his feeble attempts purely insulting.

However, even feeble attempts at comfort from a teenaged Zanpakuto was better then the sudden tug Shiro felt in his chest.

"Aw…" he groaned, coughing violently. "Not now, King…"

...

But despite the slight resistance, Ichigo was adamant, and after a second his Hollow mask materialized over his face. His eyes glinted with blue resolve, clashing with the yellow and black of his Hollow transformation, and he darted forward, holding Tensa Zangetsu in both hands.

"Getsugatensho!"

Ichigo and his opponent were both surprised by the resulting attack. It wasn't so much a wave of destruction as a… flop of destruction. The black, red-lined energy started fine, then just collapsed halfway between them and fell to the ground, the explosion throwing dust and reishi particles high into the air.

"What was that?" asked Ichigo's opponent, sounding amused. "I finally see your Hollowfied Bankai Getsugatensho… and it's that?"

Ichigo stuttered for a minute, uncertain how to reply, before finally managing a weak, "My Hollow has the flu."

...

"_Ichigo, your Getsugatensho is just as powerful as it always has been, it just has little drive because half your current power is distracted and blowing its nose every ten seconds."_

"_Why are you telling me this now?! I'm in a fight for my life, here."_

"_I'm telling you because you think you're deprived of your greatest weapon, but you're not! You simply cannot use the Getsugatensho as you often do…"_

...

Ichigo gritted his teeth together as he was flung backwards through the air, eyebrows lowering in determination. Again, black spiritual energy began to gather around his sword.

"Getsuga…" he began, locking his eyes on the now-distant opponent. He held the attack for another second, then flashstepped directly above the smirking invader, dropping down straight towards him.

"…Tensho!"

The attack flopped away from his sword, but as Ichigo was already aiming down, it merely followed the draw of gravity and barreled downward towards Ichigo's opponent. Unfortunately for the poor invader, he had underestimated the power of a true Getsugatensho (honestly, the attack didn't look too impressive after falling out of the air like a limp fish) and tried to stop it with one hand.

In his arrogance, he overlooked the fact that his power was one of manipulation and confusion, not physical toughness. The Getsugatensho hit him with enough force to shatter an Arrancar's hierro, the invader didn't stand a chance.

...

Inside his inner world, Shiro collapsed onto the ground, wheezing. Tensa patted him awkwardly on the back until the Hollow was slightly recovered, then tried to find something nice to say to comfort him.

"The sky is clearing up," he managed, smiling hesitantly at Shiro. The pale copy of Ichigo turned tired, red-tinged eyes toward the sideways sky for a moment, smiling a weak shadow of his usual maniacal sneer.

"So it is," he said, curling up and closing his eyes. "Now, I'm going to sleep."

There was a poof of smoke and reiatsu, and Zangetsu reappeared to find Shiro snoring gently, slightly wheezing, but asleep. The elderly man smiled.

"Get well soon, Shiro-kun."

...

...

A week later, Shiro and Zangetsu were having an energetic fight across the cityscape of Ichigo's sunny inner world, Shiro grinning evilly as he spun his own, inverted Zanpakuto by its ribbon.

"You're going down, Osan," he cackled, throwing the sword at Zangetsu, who just barely jumped out of the way.

Shiro was just drawing the sword back when the entire city shook suddenly. Both Hollow and Zanpakuto lost their balance and tumbled to the ground, Shiro nearly severing his own arm on his flying Zanpakuto.

"_What in the world was that?!_" he screamed, glaring at the sky. "An _earthquake_?!"

Zangetsu smiled grimly, but looked oddly satisfied. "You never been here when Ichigo's been sick, have you?"

Shiro looked at him, understanding dawning.

"I _told_ him not to use his Hollow mask while you were ill," Zangetsu said smugly. "Silly boy didn't listen…"


End file.
